Amir D Aczel's Books

Finding Zero

A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Finding Zero

A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

By: Amir D. Aczel

The invention of numbers is perhaps the greatest achievement of the human mind-- virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical, quantified. However, the origins of these numbers has until now been unknown. Amir Aczel crisscrosses the world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross-examining self-proclaimed experts with wildly differing theories, to discover where the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals come from. It is this search that leads him to explore uncharted territory, to go on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he is blown away to find the earliest zero-- the keystone of our entire system of numbers-- on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh-century temple adorned with eaten-away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets a host of fascinating characters: academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers, and treacherous archaeological thieves-- who finally reveal where our numbers come from. Aczel takes the reader on a fascinating ride-- Front book jacket flap.

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258

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137279842

ISBN 13

9781137279842

The Mystery of the Aleph

Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity

By: Amir D. Aczel

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The Mystery of the Aleph

Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity

By: Amir D. Aczel

A compelling narrative that blends the story of infinity with the tragic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician.

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Page Count

278

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743422996

ISBN 13

9780743422994

The Artist and the Mathematician

By: Amir D Aczel

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The Artist and the Mathematician

By: Amir D Aczel

Nicolas Bourbaki, whose mathematical publications began to appear in the late 1930s and continued to be published through most of the twentieth century, was a direct product as well as a major force behind an important revolution that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century that completely changed Western culture. Pure mathematics, the area of Bourbaki's work, seems on the surface to be an abstract field of human study with no direct connection with the real world. In reality, however, it is closely intertwined with the general culture that surrounds it. Major developments in mathematics have often followed important trends in popular culture; developments in mathematics have acted as harbingers of change in the surrounding human culture. The seeds of change, the beginnings of the revolution that swept the Western world in the early decades of the twentieth century -- both in mathematics and in other areas -- were sown late in the previous century. This is the story both of Bourbaki and the world that created him in that time. It is the story of an elaborate intellectual joke -- because Bourbaki, one of the foremost mathematicians of his day -- never existed.

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258

Publisher

Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0786732881

ISBN 13

9780786732883

A Strange Wilderness

The Lives of the Great Mathematicians

By: Amir D. Aczel

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A Strange Wilderness

The Lives of the Great Mathematicians

By: Amir D. Aczel

The international bestselling author of Fermat’s Last Theorem explores the eccentric lives of history’s foremost mathematicians. From Archimedes’s eureka moment to Alexander Grothendieck’s seclusion in the Pyrenees, bestselling author Amir Aczel selects the most compelling stories in the history of mathematics, creating a colorful narrative that explores the quirky personalities behind some of the most groundbreaking, influential, and enduring theorems. Alongside revolutionary innovations are incredible tales of duels, battlefield heroism, flamboyant arrogance, pranks, secret societies, imprisonment, feuds, and theft—as well as some costly errors of judgment that prove genius doesn’t equal street smarts. Aczel’s colorful and enlightening profiles offer readers a newfound appreciation for the tenacity, complexity, eccentricity, and brilliance of our greatest mathematicians.

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Page Count

328

Publisher

Union Square + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1402790856

ISBN 13

9781402790850

Complete Business Statistics with Student CD

By: Amir Aczel,Jayavel Sounderpandian

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Complete Business Statistics with Student CD

By: Amir Aczel,Jayavel Sounderpandian

Statistical integrity with a complete Excel solution. The seventh edition retains its global emphasis, maintaining its position of being at the vanguard of international issues in business.

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Page Count

804

Publisher

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0077239695

ISBN 13

9780077239695

The Artist and the Mathematician

By: Amir D Aczel

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The Artist and the Mathematician

By: Amir D Aczel

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258

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Basic Books

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ISBN 10

0786732881

ISBN 13

9780786732883

Present at the Creation

Discovering the Higgs Boson

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Present at the Creation

Discovering the Higgs Boson

By: Amir D. Aczel

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest, and by far the most powerful, machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, its audacious purpose is to re-create, in a 16.5-mile-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss countryside, the immensely hot and dense conditions that existed some 13.7 billion years ago within the first trillionth of a second after the fiery birth of our universe. In Present at the Creation, Amir D. Aczel takes us inside the control rooms, as an international team of researchers begins to discover whether a multibillion-euro investment will fulfill its promise: to find empirical confirmation of theories in physics and cosmology. Through the eyes and words of the men and women who conceived and built CERN and the LHC, Aczel enriches all of us with a firm grounding in the scientific concepts necessary to appreciate fully the stunning July 4, 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson. Newly updated in the wake of the discovery, Present at the Creation tells the story of perhaps the greatest experiment in the history of science.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Crown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307591824

ISBN 13

9780307591821

Descartes's Secret Notebook

A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Descartes's Secret Notebook

A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe

By: Amir D. Aczel

René Descartes (1596—1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “Cogito, ergo sum” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates has made our intellectual conquest of physical space possible. But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, he kept a secret notebook, now lost, most of which was written in code. After Descartes’s death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, moved to Paris in search of this notebook–and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes’s. Liebniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages–which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Liebniz’s hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes’s notebook. Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions will lead the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Crown

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307494802

ISBN 13

9780307494801

Probability 1

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Probability 1

By: Amir D. Aczel

The existence of intelligent alien life is not only probable, but certain. Aczel proves it in this eye-opening, controversial look at extraterrestrial life. Line art.

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Page Count

246

Publisher

Mariner Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0156010801

ISBN 13

9780156010801

My Search for Ramanujan

How I Learned to Count

By: Ken Ono,Amir D. Aczel

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My Search for Ramanujan

How I Learned to Count

By: Ken Ono,Amir D. Aczel

The son of a prominent Japanese mathematician who came to the United States after World War II, Ken Ono was raised on a diet of high expectations and little praise. Rebelling against his pressure-cooker of a life, Ken determined to drop out of high school to follow his own path. To obtain his father’s approval, he invoked the biography of the famous Indian mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom his father revered, who had twice flunked out of college because of his single-minded devotion to mathematics. Ono describes his rocky path through college and graduate school, interweaving Ramanujan’s story with his own and telling how at key moments, he was inspired by Ramanujan and guided by mentors who encouraged him to pursue his interest in exploring Ramanujan’s mathematical legacy. Picking up where others left off, beginning with the great English mathematician G.H. Hardy, who brought Ramanujan to Cambridge in 1914, Ono has devoted his mathematical career to understanding how in his short life, Ramanujan was able to discover so many deep mathematical truths, which Ramanujan believed had been sent to him as visions from a Hindu goddess. And it was Ramanujan who was ultimately the source of reconciliation between Ono and his parents. Ono’s search for Ramanujan ranges over three continents and crosses paths with mathematicians whose lives span the globe and the entire twentieth century and beyond. Along the way, Ken made many fascinating discoveries. The most important and surprising one of all was his own humanity.

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Page Count

235

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

3319255681

ISBN 13

9783319255682

The Jesuit and the Skull

By: Amir Aczel

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The Jesuit and the Skull

By: Amir Aczel

From the New York Times bestselling author of Fermat?s Last Theorem, ?an extraordinary story?( Philadelphia Inquirer) of discovery, evolution, science, and faith. In 1929, French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a part of a group of scientists that uncovered a skull that became known as Peking Man, a key evolutionary link that left Teilhard torn between science and his ancient faith, and would leave him ostracized by his beloved Catholic Church. His struggle is at the heart of The Jesuit and the Skull, which takes readers across continents and cultures in a fascinating exploration of one of the twentieth century?s most important discoveries, and one of the world?s most provocative pieces of evidence in the roiling debate between creationism and evolution.

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Page Count

324

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1440637350

ISBN 13

9781440637353

A Strange Wilderness

The Lives of the Great Mathematicians

By: Amir D. Aczel

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A Strange Wilderness

The Lives of the Great Mathematicians

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Page Count

328

Publisher

Union Square + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1402790856

ISBN 13

9781402790850

Finding Zero

A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Finding Zero

A Mathematician's Odyssey to Uncover the Origins of Numbers

By: Amir D. Aczel

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258

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137279842

ISBN 13

9781137279842

Uranium Wars

The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Uranium Wars

The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age

By: Amir D. Aczel

Uranium, a nondescript element when found in nature, in the past century has become more sought after than gold. Its nucleus is so heavy that it is highly unstable and radioactive. If broken apart, it unleashes the tremendous power within the atom--the most controversial type of energy ever discovered. Set against the darkening shadow of World War II, Amir D. Aczel's suspenseful account tells the story of the fierce competition among the day's top scientists to harness nuclear power. The intensely driven Marie Curie identified radioactivity. The University of Berlin team of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner--he an upright, politically conservative German chemist and she a soft-spoken Austrian Jewish theoretical physicist--achieved the most spectacular discoveries in fission. Curie's daughter, Ir ne Joliot-Curie, raced against Meitner and Hahn to break the secret of the splitting of the atom. As the war raged, Niels Bohr, a founder of modern physics, had a dramatic meeting with Werner Heisenberg, the German physicist in charge of the Nazi project to beat the Allies to the bomb. And finally, in 1942, Enrico Fermi, a prodigy from Rome who had fled the war to the United States, unleashed the first nuclear chain reaction in a racquetball court at the University of Chicago. At a time when the world is again confronted with the perils of nuclear armament, Amir D. Aczel's absorbing story of a rivalry that changed the course of history is as thrilling and suspenseful as it is scientifically revelatory and newsworthy.

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258

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0230103359

ISBN 13

9780230103351

Pendulum

Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Pendulum

Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science

By: Amir D. Aczel

In 1851, struggling, self-taught physicist Léon Foucault performed a dramatic demonstration inside the Panthéon in Paris. By tracking a pendulum's path as it swung repeatedly across the interior of the large ceremonial hall, Foucault offered the first definitive proof -- before an audience that comprised the cream of Parisian society, including the future emperor, Napoleon III -- that the earth revolves on its axis. Through careful, primary research, world-renowned author Amir Aczel has revealed the life of a gifted physicist who had almost no formal education in science, and yet managed to succeed despite the adversity he suffered at the hands of his peers. The range and breadth of Foucault's discoveries is astonishing: He gave us the modern electric compass, devised an electric microscope, invented photographic technology, and made remarkable deductions about color theory, heat waves, and the speed of light. Yet until now so little has been known about his life. Richly detailed and evocative, Pendulum tells of the illustrious period in France during the Second Empire; of Foucault's relationship with Napoleon III, a colorful character in his own right; and -- most notably -- of the crucial triumph of science over religion. Dr. Aczel has crafted a fascinating narrative based on the life of this most astonishing and largely unrecognized scientist, whose findings answered many age-old scientific questions and posed new ones that are still relevant today.

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Page Count

248

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1416588434

ISBN 13

9781416588436

The Mystery of the Aleph

Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity

By: Amir D. Aczel

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The Mystery of the Aleph

Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity

By: Amir D. Aczel

A compelling narrative that blends the story of infinity with the tragic tale of a tormented and brilliant mathematician.

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Page Count

278

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

0743422996

ISBN 13

9780743422994

Complete Business Statistics

By: Amir D. Aczel,Jayavel Sounderpandian

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Complete Business Statistics

By: Amir D. Aczel,Jayavel Sounderpandian

Traditionally, Complete Business Statistics has been praised for its quality of presentation and the richness of problem sets that are realistic, stimulating and challenging. The new edition will continue to provide students with a solid understanding of statistical concepts and rich problems to stimulate learning. In addition students will be exposed to the most current uses of technology in business statistics. Students and instructors alike will enjoy using this text that now has more Excel and other software applications integrated than ever before.

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Page Count

920

Publisher

Irwin/McGraw-Hill

Published Date

ISBN 10

0072524855

ISBN 13

9780072524857

Probability 1

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Probability 1

By: Amir D. Aczel

The existence of intelligent alien life is not only probable, but certain. Aczel proves it in this eye-opening, controversial look at extraterrestrial life. Line art.

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Page Count

246

Publisher

Mariner Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0156010801

ISBN 13

9780156010801

The Jesuit and the Skull

By: Amir Aczel

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The Jesuit and the Skull

By: Amir Aczel

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Page Count

324

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1440637350

ISBN 13

9781440637353

Pendulum

Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Pendulum

Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Page Count

248

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1416588434

ISBN 13

9781416588436

Descartes's Secret Notebook

A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe

By: Amir D. Aczel

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Descartes's Secret Notebook

A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe

By: Amir D. Aczel

René Descartes (1596–1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “Cogito, ergo sum” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates have made our physical and intellectual conquest of physical space possible. But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, he kept a secret notebook, now lost, most of which was written in code. After Descartes’s death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians in history, moved to Paris in search of this notebook—and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes. Leibniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages—which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Leibniz’s hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes’s notebook, which has disappeared. Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions lead Amir Aczel and the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.

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